


Thoughts on Raising Bruce Wayne

by Calacious



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alfred's Point of View, Angsty thoughts, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred contemplates what it means to raise Bruce Wayne after the boy's parents' deaths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thoughts on Raising Bruce Wayne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Iphys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iphys/gifts).



> Written as a treat for this portion of your request: "I would love anything that takes a critical look at Alfred's influence on Bruce, because he clearly loves that kid, but sometimes it's uncomfortably obvious how he's raising someone who will grow up to be Batman. In general, feel free to pile on the angsty foreshadowing; I love the whole Batman mythos."
> 
> I hope you like it.
> 
> **Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters of this work of fiction.

Alfred knows that there's only so much he can do to protect and keep Bruce safe, to raise him the way that he believes that the boy's parents would have wanted him to be raised had they not been gunned down in some dark back alley on their way home from the theatre. 

Bruce, for all that he tries to be brave, and take on every aspect of his father's business, is still just a boy. An impressionable, hurting boy. 

A boy that Alfred, with the death of the Waynes, has been tasked with shaping and molding into the young man that he will become. A man that, given the questions Bruce asks, and the direction that he's taking, will become a force to be reckoned with. He’s already a force to be reckoned with, and he’s only twelve.

Standing there, watching Bruce pore over his father's papers, shoulders and head bowed as though he's carrying the weight of the world on them, Alfred wonders (not for the first time) if he's doing the right thing, letting Bruce take on a man's responsibilities when he's little more than a child, shoulders too thin to carry such tremendous weight. 

The boy has such a kind, loving heart, but Alfred can see that it's been tainted by his parents' deaths, that Bruce's ongoing quest for revenge is carving a jagged hole in the boy's heart, neatly inserting its dark mark over everything as though it has a right to the boy. It doesn't, but Alfred knows what a clever seductress revenge can be. If he could save Bruce from her tarnished clutches, he would, but she's already sunk her claws into him, and there's no point in entertaining foolish thoughts. Wishing something was so has never made it so.

If he doesn't watch the boy carefully, aid him in every way that he can, and thus help shape the boy's anger, his unquenchable desire for revenge, fashion it into something productive, Alfred knows that he'll lose him for good, and, above all else -- the desire to carry out the Waynes' wishes, reclaim some of Bruce's lost innocence -- he doesn't want that. To lose the boy would be to lose himself. To lose Thomas Wayne's true legacy.

Bruce throws his inconsiderable weight around like the adult that he isn't; the adult that Alfred hopes he doesn't become -- spoiled, rich, arrogant, pain in the ass that he'll have to clean up after. 

It's a fine line that he has to walk, giving Bruce some of the independence that he craves, yet protecting the boy from himself, from making bad decisions, because, much as he plays at being a man, he is still just a boy with a big heart. One that's a little worse for the wear, and broken, but still good.

There's much he can show Bruce of fighting, both dirty and clean, but the boy is nowhere near where he needs to be with regard to understanding when to employ which. He's headstrong. Quick to anger when reason doesn't pan out. Has the patience of a gnat, though he's learning, growing, becoming a man well before he should. In many ways, Bruce is still just an ordinary kid, trying to fight his way to adulthood, and figure out who he is. 

Raising him in the absence of his parents is a daunting, yet wholly worthwhile endeavor that Alfred suspects he'll screw up more often than not. But what parent doesn't screw up in the task of raising children? Not that Alfred ever had any aspirations of becoming a parent, let alone to a traumatized (even if Bruce would never describe himself as such) young man.

There are days he misses his old life. Would willingly walk away and never look back, but then he pictures Bruce's face, after his parents' deaths, and he knows that, even if he took a step toward the past, he'd never leave the boy, even though the boy tries his best to shove him away, has even gone so far as to fire him.

Bruce is not an easy child to deal with. Never has been. There's no doubt in Alfred's mind that, when he reaches adulthood, Bruce won't be an easy man to deal with either. He'll be moody. Driven. Single-minded. But, no matter what, he won’t be alone, because, even if Bruce tries to push him out of his life again, Alfred will stand by him. He won’t let the boy, or the man he becomes, stand alone.

And that's where he comes in. It's his duty to train Bruce, make him into a young man that his mother and father would be proud of -- that he'll be proud of -- a young man who, while single-minded, and stubborn to a fault, will still harbor common decency in his heart, and have a keen intellect. A savvy businessman who can also defend himself, but will brake for kittens rather than run them down. Someone who won't profit, or capitalize upon, or exploit man's weaknesses, but rather expose them for what they are, and try to make the world a better, safer place for the innocents. It's what Wayne Enterprises needs; it's what Gotham needs; it’s what the world needs. 

Alfred's not blind, and he's not stupid. He knows that young Bruce Wayne has his faults, that he'll carry most of them on into adulthood, such as his bullheadedness, his quickness to anger, and the typical male pride that will keep him from asking for help when he needs it. He can't completely eliminate these character traits from the young man, but he can temper them, and teach Bruce how to control these aspects of his personality. How to use them to his benefit.

Anger isn't a bad thing, once it's properly aimed. It can achieve a lot of good. Likewise, stubbornness can be shaped and guided, can become tenacity. Can make a man wealthy. But the flip-side is bitterness, and waste. 

Pride, on the other hand, can rob a man blind. Alfred knows too many men, most of them good, who've let their pride get the better of them. Men who've died because of their unwillingness to reach out for help when they needed it. He's been there, too. Has learned, the hard way, that sometimes a helping hand is what's needed, that it doesn't diminish his manhood, but rather makes him a wise man who can be counted among the living.

Sometimes the boy drives him batty. Makes him want to pull out his hair, and drown himself in a bottle of cheap whisky. So much damnable pride in one so young has got to be a sign of something. An early death, perhaps. Though something tells Alfred that Bruce’s tenacity is a sign of something more, something bigger than anyone can even begin to imagine.

There’s a lot he has yet to teach Bruce, and it’s terrifying in some respects, because there’s so many ways that he can mess this up, but, as he looks over at the young man dwarfed in his father’s chair, papers strewn about him on a desk that he can barely see over the top of, Alfred realizes that everything in his life has been leading up to this. To raising Bruce Wayne.

 


End file.
